1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to wireless transmission of data information, and in particular, to wireless transmission of delay insensitive uncompressed data over a wireless network.
2. Brief Description of the Related Technology
High definition (HD) television has been well received by consumers and now many HD components are available. The high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) standard has been developed to allow compatible interfaces between components. The next stage is to allow consumers to connect HD components across a short range wireless network. To achieve real-time video transfer, the video is transmitted in uncompressed form.
Time insensitive data transfer such as file transfer is a very important application for high data rate wireless networks designed for downloading/uploading compressed/uncompressed video files or other data files over short ranges. Even though such applications are delay insensitive, an efficient transmission scheme can significantly enhance the channel efficiency. For battery operated devices, reduction in data transfer time results in a longer battery life.
A high-rate PHY (HRP) frame format has not been defined for such networks. A HRP composite frame format for uncompressed video is defined as illustrated in FIG. 1. However, there are several problems with using this format for other types of data transfer. First, some header information such as a field of clock sync information 102 and a field of video header 104 are not applicable to data transmission. Second, for transfer of composite packets, it is reasonable to set seven sub-packets 106, but the seven sub-packets 106 need to be mapped to five ACK groups to accommodate different types of payload information. However, for data transfer, since there are at most two types of payload (i.e., data and control) there is no need to set seven sub-packets 106 and then perform ACK group mapping. The delay insensitive data to transfer may include stored multimedia files. These days, there are many occasions in which such multimedia files need to be transferred from one device to another. For example, a digital camera or camcorder easily produces high-resolution pictures or a long video clip that the user may want to upload to a computer or an HDTV. The size of a multimedia file is usually much larger than the other types of files.